The Netherlands said on Wednesday that Germany must arrest and imprison a Nazi war criminal who was convicted in a Dutch court and has lived freely in the German state of Bavaria for decades.

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Klaas Carel Faber, a member of the Nazi SS unit, was sentenced to death by a Dutch court in 1947 for murdering 22 Jews, but escaped prison in 1952 and fled to Bavaria, settling in Ingolstadt.

His sentence was later converted to life in prison.

The Netherlands issued a European arrest warrant for Faber in November and sought his return to Dutch custody but Bavarian officials have so far refused to execute the warrant.

In 1957, a German court dropped all charges against Faber for lack of evidence and Bavarian officials have said the Netherlands must produce new evidence before Faber can be arrested again.

Germany also recognises the citizenship Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler gave to all those serving in the SS, and does not extradite its own citizens.

Duty to execute

"A country that refuses to execute a European arrest warrant because the the individual is one of its citizens, must, according to European regulations, execute the sentence," the Dutch justice ministry said in a statement.

"The Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten wrote to his German counterpart and the justice minister of Bavaria to explain that Klaas Faber should serve his life prison sentence in Germany," the statement added.

Faber is third on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's list of wanted Nazis.

From 1943 to 1944 he worked at transit camp where famed diarist Anne Frank was held.

His unit killed Dutch civilians deemed "anti-German" in reprisal for resistance attacks against the Nazi occupation.

Faber escaped from the Breda prison in western Netherlands in 1952 with six other former SS men and later worked for the German car maker Audi.